Early year ethanol pace is ahead so far.

The new corn marketing year started on September 1. USDA sees corn for ethanol in this year at 5.450 billion bushels. That would be -0.3% from USDA's view of old crop, 4.650. For now, we won't make any adjustments to ethanol production efficiency with this fresh new corn crop. The old crop year saw poorer efficiency than the prior year, -1.3%.

The first two weeks saw production +4% and +7% year over year. Today's report, covering last week, showed a 994,000 barrel per day pace. That was -2%. It is far too early to make grand statements about this year's pace. So far, we are ahead.

The new year has found good gasoline demand so far, +4% year/year.

‍